Through this mystic world of gold and blue and purple drove Cameron and his wife, on their way to the little town of Calgary, three days after the ruthless burning of their home. As the sun dipped behind the western peaks they reached the crossing of the Elbow and entered the wide Bow Valley, upon whose level plain was situated the busy, ambitious and would-be wicked little pioneer town. The town and plain lay bathed in a soft haze of rosy purple that lent a kind of Oriental splendor to the tawdry, unsightly cluster of shacks that sprawled here and there in irregular bunches on the prairie.
“What a picture it makes!” cried Mandy. “How wonderful this great plain with its encircling rivers, those hills with the great peaks beyond! What a site for a town!”
“There is no finer,” replied her husband, “anywhere in the world that I know, unless it be that of 'Auld Reekie.'”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning!” he echoed indignantly. “What else but the finest of all the capitals of Europe?”
“London?” inquired Mandy.
“London!” echoed her husband contemptuously. “You ignorant Colonial! Edinburgh, of course. But this is perfectly splendid,” he continued. “I never get used to the wonder of Calgary. You see that deep cut between those peaks in the far west? That is where 'The Gap' lies, through which the Bow flows toward us. A great site this for a great town some day. But you ought to see these peaks in the morning with the sunlight coming up from the east across the foothills and falling upon them. Whoa, there! Steady, Pepper!” he cried to the broncho, which owed its name to the speckled appearance of its hide, and which at the present moment was plunging and kicking at a dog that had rushed out from an Indian encampment close by the trail. “Did you never see an Indian dog before?”
“Oh, Allan,” cried Mandy with a shudder, “do you know I can't bear to look at an Indian since last week, and I used to like them.”
“Hardly fair, though, to blame the whole race for the deviltry of one specimen.”
“I know that, but—”